Representational drift gates critical-period plasticity in mouse visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: Brief monocular deprivation during a developmentally critical period, but not thereafter, shifts cortical responses toward the non-deprived eye. The characteristics of neural circuitry that permit this experience-dependent plasticity are poorly understood. Here, we performed repeated calcium imaging at cellular resolution to track the tuning properties of populations of excitatory layer 2/3 neurons in the visual cortex of juvenile mice during the critical period, adult mice after the critical period, and adult nogo-66 receptor (ngr1) mutant mice that retain critical-period plasticity. The instability of tuning for populations of neurons, termed "representational drift," was significantly greater during the critical period than in adulthood. Adult ngr1 mutant mice displayed representational

SUBMITTER: Brown TC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12419199 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature